Kenzhin Aspandiyar (1887-1938)

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Kenzhin Aspandiyar is a public figure, a participant in the Alash movement and the Alash party. He graduated from the Orenburg Teachers School in 1916. Before the February Revolution of 1917 he worked as a teacher. He was appointed to A.Bokeikhanov’s place as the head of the department of alien peoples of the All-Russian Zemsky Union. In the years 1917-1919 he took an active part in the work of the Alash Orda government and the Alash party. He was the chairman of the zemstvo administration of the Temir district, a member of the Turgay military council of the Alash Orda government.

The 1st All-Kazakh Congress elected Kenzhin as a representative of the Kazakh people at the All-Russian Constituent Commission, and he was elected as a candidate for the National Council of Alash Orda at the 2nd All-Kazakh Congress. At the Karatobinsk congress of the Kazakhs of the Urals region in January 1918, he was one of the initiators of the creation of the Ak Zhol (The Bright way) party. On behalf of the Alash Orda government, negotiated with the White Guards (with Kolchak) and the Red Guards (with A. Zhangeldin).

Since 1920 he was a member of the VKP (b) (All-Union Communist party of Bolsheviks), deputy head of the propaganda of Kazkraikom department, the commissioner of the People’s Commissariat of KazASSR, in 1921-1922 he was a Commissar of Trade. He was chairman of the government commission on the transfer of the capital of the republic to Kyzyl-Orda, which became known as the “Kenzhinsk Commission”. He was also the chairman of the Council of the National Economy of Kazakhstan, the head of the construction of the Semipalatinsk meat-packing plant, the representative of the procurement committee under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR in Turkmenistan, and the deputy director of Oblkozhzagotovka (Oblast leather billet) in Orenburg. Three times he was expelled from the party in 1921, 1932 and 1936.

He was declared the enemy of the people and was shot in 1938.